Buy Good Art: GILLIES JONES
I’ve already written about our love for the work of Stephen and Kate here.
We haven’t added to our collection since then but the desire to do so nags at us pleasantly and often. The studio and workshop in Rosedale Abbey continues to produce excellence, expressed through the most thoughtful design, mastery of technical skills and an insistence on finished perfection.
My idea to display our small collection with a bit more impact has been bubbling under for a long time. After re-jigging our CD racks into cookbook cases I had four nicely finished excess oak shelves. A trip to the loft revealed an old timber fence rail which would be a slim but firm vertical support for the cantilever arrangement which I had sketched.
I knew that 2020 marked a special date in the history of glassware. The Gillies Jones newsletter - sign up here - had reminded us that their doors first opened twenty-five years ago on the 1st of May in 1995.
So far Covid-19 has rather mucked up much of the planned celebrations. I do not claim my DIY effort as a deliberate tribute to the occasion - it should have been started years ago! But I am pleased that it has chimed in with the necessarily muted bells and whistles which acclaim this Silver (maybe Silica would be better) Anniversary.
Here are four pictures of initial progress. No harm underlining the display with a little classic Tupperware, eh.
There are possibilities around our house to place this set-up to great advantage against a large expanse of natural light. I played around with the options.
All was disassembled for a revised version. The pierced holes grew larger and the revealed grain and distressed look of the upright disappeared to make way for a cleaner finish. Brilliant white masonry paint - thanks for asking!
There are a few more photos of things taking shape in my gallery here.
The final piece - until I muck about with it a bit more!
Gillies Jones remains “defiantly decorative” and even in these times threatened by pandemic their doors are still very much ajar for business. Go to the shop here. You will be tempted. Luckily there is no barrier to a delivery after you have yielded to that temptation. And, if all goes well, the studio is open again from 15 June. Irresistible.
Go on - #BuyGoodArt
Neil Gaiman exhorts us all to ‘Make Good Art’. This is just one of a series of posts in my blog where I advocate that you also buy good art. Creativity deserves to be rewarded and fed.